Ginkgo, cottonwood, pin oak, sweet gum, tulip tree:
our emotions resemble leaves and alive
to their shapes we are nourished.
Have you felt the expanse and contours of grief
along the edges of a big Norway maple?
Have you winced at the orange flare
searing the curves of a curling dogwood?
I have seen from the air logged islands,
each with a network of branching gravel roads,
and felt a moment of pure anger, aspen gold.
I have seen sandhill cranes moving in an open field,
a single white whooping crane in the flock.
And I have traveled along the contours
of leaves that have no name. Here
where the air is wet and the light is cool,
I feel what others are thinking and do not speak,
I know pleasure in the veins of a sugar maple,
I am living at the edge of a new leaf.
From The Redshifting Web: Poems 1970-1998, published by Copper Canyon Press, 1998. Copyright © 1998 by Arthur Sze. All rights reserved.
Jennifer Weeks
Professor de Jesus
Spring 2001
The Shapes of Leaves, as a poem, is reminiscent
of classical Chinese poets, as well as of more American influences.
The lyricism is strongly Asian in origin, while the lucidity and sharpness
of the language call to mind some of Robert Frost's poetry. The poem
is partially political, in content, as it describes the poet's anger over
deforestation, but it also explores the concept of synesthesia, the merging
of emotions and shapes.
Sze's use of language is complex and layered.
He is able to indicate clearly emotions and sensations with a minimum of
language. "I know pleasure in the veins of a sugar maple."
The line, upon a first reading, seems exquisitely right. Upon attempting
to determine why, one realizes that the vein of a maple is full of joyous,
rising, sweet sap. Sze demands a commitment from his reader, and
rewards it richly with layers of beauty.
It is difficult to describe environmental concerns
poetically, but Sze achieves precisely that. His description of seeing
logged islands, and relating his anger to the trees, is an impressive literary
feat. Sze uses shape and color to express his emotions, such as in
"a moment of pure anger, aspen gold." The sharp edges of a maple
leaf are given the significance of grief, just as the "leaves without names"
represent emotions too deep to be simply expressed.
Sze's richly complex poetry draws beauty from both
Asian and American cultures, to create something purely new. His
work stands on its own, not as Asian American art, but simply as art.
To add anything more is to insult his mastery of his craft.
The
Shapes of Leaves Asian-American
Aesthetic Bibliography
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